The Startup CPG Podcast


In this episode of the Startup CPG Podcast, host Caitlin Bricker sits down with Christine Liu and Clarissa Wei, co-founders of HEYDOH — a single origin soy sauce brand built to fill a gap in the American grocery market. The global soy sauce market is worth $40–59 billion, yet there is not a single origin option on the shelves of America's largest grocery stores. HEYDOH is here to change that.


Clarissa is a food journalist who has spent 15 years covering Taiwanese and Chinese cuisine and has been based in East Asia for eight years. Christine is a data scientist from big tech who originally said no to the idea — until a factory visit in Taiwan and her first sip changed everything. Together they run what they call a 24-hour company: Clarissa in Taiwan, Christine in Brooklyn, an introvert running marketing and an extrovert running numbers.


Caitlin and the co-founders dig into the origin of HEYDOH, how consumer surveys shaped the product lineup, and the packaging disaster that led to a complete rebrand — and ultimately three Dieline Awards including Best in Food. They also get into the operational realities of shipping glass bottles, how a 25% breakage rate got fixed, and the creative shipping rate hack that helped them stay in the green on D2C.


Listen in as they discuss:

  • Why the $40–59B global soy sauce market has no single origin options in major US retailers — and how HEYDOH is filling that gap
  • How Christine went from "absolutely not" to co-founder after one factory visit in Taiwan
  • The consumer survey process that shaped the classic vs. silky SKU split — and why low sodium was a no-brainer
  • The Robinhood-app branding disaster, the pivot to a studio, and three Dieline Awards including Best in Food
  • Running a 24-hour company across time zones — and why the introvert/extrovert flip actually works
  • How Startup CPG buyer meetings led to Happier Grocer, Good Stuff Distributor, and more
  • The 3PL breakage crisis: 25% of glass bottles shattering and the wine shipper insert that saved them
  • How Christine forced their 3PL to shop against her own shipping rates — and cut costs by $3–4 per package
  • Why chemistry with partners matters more than a resume


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Show Links:

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  • Episode music by Super Fantastics

Creators and Guests

Host
Caitlin Bricker
Editor @ Startup CPG

What is The Startup CPG Podcast?

The top CPG podcast in the world, highlighting stories from founders, buyer spotlights, highly practical industry insights - all to give you a better chance at success.

Christine Liu
A lot of the chefs and vendors here in Taiwan are using really high quality pantry staples. They're using soy sauces made with special soybeans, like the blast soybeans that we use. And then I realized if I was feeling this way, then most of America does not have access to these high quality staples. And I thought what would happen if Americans do have access to single origin soy sauce? And HEYDOH was sort of born from this idea. And ever since we started the company, I cannot go back. I'm like constantly only using HEYDOH, not because it's my brand, but because when I cook with commodity soy sauce, I can really taste the difference now.

00:50
Caitlin Bricker
Hey, everybody, this is Caitlin Bricker, managing editor at Startup CPG. We are back with another founder feature. Today I'm talking with Christine Liu and Clarissa Wei, co founders of HEYDOH, a single origin soy sauce brand that's filling a massive gap in America's grocery stores. Clarissa is a food journalist who spent 15 years covering Taiwanese and Chinese cuisine. And Christine's a data scientist from Big Tech who originally said no to this idea until she tasted the product in Taiwan. We're diving into why the 40 to 59 billion with a B global soy sauce market has zero single origin options in major US retailers. How they run a 24 hour company across time zones with Clarissa in Taiwan and Christine in Brooklyn. And the packaging disaster that ultimately led to a boss move, a pivot that turned them into an award winning brand.

01:40
Caitlin Bricker
Plus they're breaking down their shipping nightmare with glass bottles. How they cut costs by forcing their 3 PL to shop against their own rates. And why chemistry with your partners matters more than a resume. As always, enjoy. Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Startup CPG podcast. This is Kaitlin and today I'm here with Christine Liu and Clarissa Way, co founders of HEYDOH. Welcome to the show.

02:04
Christine Liu
Thanks for having us.

02:06
Clarissa Wei
Thanks, Caitlin.

02:07
Caitlin Bricker
I'm so excited to have you here. Christine and I met before. HEYDOH. Went into the public eye. You are very covert. Just dropping little hints on Instagram and maybe not even dropping hints at that point. Anybody who knows me knows I'm like tending to overheat in postpartum, which two and a half years at this point, but I always need to find the coolest spot. And thankfully Christine and I met basically in a freezer in New York about a year ago.

02:34
Clarissa Wei
Yes, that is what happened. It was a lot of people and we both needed ac and you guys were so kind to give me refuge. The staff at Startup cpg.

02:45
Caitlin Bricker
Well, you know what? It ended up being a really happy thing because I have been able to watch your brand grow from the sidelines, basically. So to have you here for this conversation is very special to me. So I'm excited to get into all things HEYDOH. Before we do that, Clarissa, can you just tell us what hey, dough is?

03:03
Christine Liu
Yeah. So HEYDOH stands for black soybean, and we are a single origin soy sauce brand.

03:08
Caitlin Bricker
Beautiful. Straight to the point. Can you tell us why this is needed in the CPG space? I'm curious because I'm sure people think about hot sauce, they think about pasta sauce, and it looks like a very saturated market until you pick up a product and you're like, okay, maybe it's not so saturated anymore. So why HEYDOH and why now?

03:28
Christine Liu
Yeah, it's really interesting. The global soy sauce market is anywhere from 40 to $59 billion. That's two to three times greater than olive oil. Yet on America's grocery store shelves, there is really only what I see or what Christina and I see as two different types of soy sauce. There is your cheap commodity brands that are $5, and then there's your, like, $40. Her that is still in Japanese or Chinese script. So we started HEYDOH. To really embody that middle ground. There are currently no single origin soy sauces in America's largest grocery stores. So we saw this opportunity and here we are. It's been quite a ride.

04:11
Caitlin Bricker
I think it's really interesting to hear that. And I think if we add some color with your backgrounds too, I think everything is going to start making sense. So, Christine, you want to go first? You want to tell us a bit about your background?

04:22
Clarissa Wei
Yeah. So I come from the world of tech and big tech, working as a data scientist and data engineer. So at HEYDOH Clarison, and I like to say, like, I do everything that's associated with numbers. Love numbers, love spreadsheets. And I'm also the one who's based in Brooklyn, New York, so giving us that presence. You've seen this at demo events, at different industry events. Yeah. So Clarissa had approached me about this idea, and she can go more into like, the genesis for her. And what actually happened was I originally said no. I was just like, I don't want to start a company. This is crazy. Like, why would I leave? Because she big tech life for this. And when I was visiting her in Taiwan, she let me try some soy sauces.

05:08
Clarissa Wei
We did a factory visit to a potential supplier, and I was hooked. I was like, I get it now. So it was basically like a yes at first sip being like, why can't we have better soy sauce in America? This is amazing. I've never tasted anything like this in all the choices I've had in the States.

05:25
Caitlin Bricker
I love it. Clarissa, tell us about your background.

05:28
Christine Liu
Yeah, so I've been a food journalist for 15 years now, really specializing in Taiwanese and Chinese cuisine. And I've been based in East Asia for eight years. And my whole adult career, I've just been telling the story of Asian food for the American audience. And HEYDOH was sort of born when I was writing my cookbooks. When you're writing a cookbook for the American audience, you have to sort of test with whatever pantry you can get at most American grocery stores. So I was using cheap soy sauce, your average brand that you can get Kikkoman or Lee Kum Kee, we can buy that here in Taiwan as well, where I'm based. And I was starting to realize that when I used these sauces, the dishes weren't hitting right. The dishes did not taste like what they taste like in Taiwan.

06:16
Christine Liu
And it wasn't because of the recipe, because I was getting these recipes from the vendors itself. It was because a lot of the chefs and vendors here in Taiwan are using really high quality pantry staples. They're using soy sauces made with special soybeans, like the blast soybeans that we use. And then I realized if I was feeling this way, then most of America does not have access to these high quality staples. And I thought, what would happen if Americans do have access to single origin soy sauce? And HEYDOH is sort of born from this idea. And ever since we started the company, I cannot go back. I'm like, constantly only using heido, not because it's my brand, but because when I cook with commodity soy sauce, I can really taste the difference now.

07:02
Caitlin Bricker
And I don't have a palate for soy sauce, but when I tried hay dough, I knew this was different, not only for the flavor, but for the branding too. It's just so different from anything else you see on shelf. Why wouldn't I gravitate towards it? Catches my eye. And then the palate, it's cleansed basically from any other soy sauce that I would ever want to use again. So how did you land on choosing soy sauce specifically? I know you have the silky. I know you have. Is it the classic? And then I saw that you're also expanding your lineup. How did you choose to keep it just so tight in such a crowded market?

07:41
Christine Liu
It comes down to storytelling. I think when you overwhelm People with too many SKUs, people get really confused with how to use it. And we chose soy sauce because, again, I would say probably the most foundational Asian condiment there is. And most people in America know soy sauce even if you don't cook. And that's how we came up with the classic in silky. So classic is for people who have a familiarity with Asian food who already use soy sauce on a regular basis. Silky is the one for people who, when they think of soy sauce, I think it as a dip for dumplings, or they use it with sushi and they don't really cook with it, but they'll dip with it. So there's two different use cases for two completely different consumers.

08:23
Christine Liu
But these two types of consumers really embody what we think is the average American. And yeah, we just didn't want to overcomplicate things because if we did, it would sort of. This product would relegate itself to specialty, ethnic niche stores. And that's not our goal with hey, Doug. Our goal with Heido is to bring it as big as it can possibly be.

08:44
Caitlin Bricker
You know, it's pretty refreshing to hear that. That's a word I say often on the show. And I talk to a lot of founders who obviously have Whole Foods as that store that they're looking at that they really want to get into. And then I talk to other brands who are saying, you know what? Slow and steady. I want to keep my brand small. I want to grow very steadily. I don't want to be big. And you are changing the narrative here. You want to be everywhere. You want people to recognize. Hey, doe. And I think that is very cool to have big goals like that.

09:14
Christine Liu
Well, that was the only way I could convince Christine to quit.

09:17
Caitlin Bricker
The truth comes out.

09:18
Christine Liu
Her big tech job. I mean, it's a huge market opportunity. Right. And it's fascinating how no one has done it yet. And I'm glad we are sort of occupying that space.

09:30
Clarissa Wei
Yeah. The way I think about it, too, is kind of what Clarissa was saying is, like, everyone should be able to have access to this. Right? Like, they shouldn't have to order from our website, where they should have to travel to, like in the one Asian grocery store, like in a hundred mile radius, which is like a reality for lots of Americans. They should be able to go to their Whole foods. They should be able to go to their western supermarket and be able to find high quality soy sauce.

09:55
Caitlin Bricker
Right.

09:55
Clarissa Wei
And our soy sauce is also lower sodium too. So, like, there's a really special health aspect to that. Too.

10:01
Caitlin Bricker
I don't know if I knew that. That is really cool. I know. I see a lot of brands that are calling out on their label and that's their differentiator. They have like their original skew and then they have their low sodium skew. But you're just coming out very specifically having the low sodium skew, which immediately makes you a clear winner again with the branding and the flavor. So I think that's great.

10:22
Christine Liu
Yeah, that was part of the market research too. Like 52% of Americans say they prefer lower sodium. So when were sort of crafting or deciding what skus to put out, this was immediately a huge draw for us. So not only lower sodium, but single origin and no artificial additives. I mean, I'm a mom myself. Something I would feel good about serving my young kids.

10:45
Caitlin Bricker
I love it.

10:46
Clarissa Wei
Yeah. Before we launched, we did a survey among friends and family and we've really insisted on people pass it to like second, third degree connections. So it's not just us on the echo chamber. Low sodium, I think it was almost everybody was checking that off as something that they really cared about. So just really reflective of the more national data that clorsocide.

11:05
Caitlin Bricker
Can you give us some insight into other questions that you were asking to survey your group before you went and launched? Yeah.

11:12
Christine Liu
So initially we gave them the silky and we thought that was going to just be our all purpose hero product. And then we realized that people thought it was a bit sweet, that it was more for finishing. Because when we built this, I initially just wanted one sku. And then this differentiation between classic and silky was really built based on consumer feedback and our survey feedback. So when people were like, oh, it's a bit sweet, I think it's more of a finishing sauce. We're like, okay, then we'll just make it the finishing sauce. And then we set out to find our classic soy sauce, the one with no sugar.

11:47
Clarissa Wei
The other really fun thing that were surveying on. So I was passing out and mailing bottles of our soy sauce. Is also the first pass at design, which Clarissa talks a lot about on her substack and also our Instagram. So we had hired designer in Taiwan who was great. She just didn't quite have the experience working for a western market, understanding kind of like the needs of the western consumer and had a difficult time translating what we wanted onto paper. So we ended up our first passive design. I'm not sure if you can attach pictures in the show notes or something. Basically looks like the Robinhood, like stock trading app. On a bottle. And it just, like, doesn't work when you're like, I want to eat, like, healthy soy sauce. We were saying, like, we bought something bold. We want something edgy.

12:34
Clarissa Wei
And we ended up with the Robinhood app. So that was also something were surveying is like, hey, what do you think about this? And people were like, yeah, it's kind of weird. So that was really helpful feedback, and it really kind of pushed us to be like, hey, we want this to stick out. Like, part of this narrative is like, we want this to be culturally acceptable too. Right. Or accessible. Like, people should want to grab this off the shelf. They should understand what they're looking at when they see this bottle. So it really pushed us to working with a branding studio, and were hesitant, of course, of spending the money because it's not cheap. These branding studios do amazing work.

13:11
Clarissa Wei
But we really dug in and thought about, like, what we needed, and we realized we needed some help telling the story we wanted to tell.

13:18
Caitlin Bricker
And it obviously worked because you just won a Dieline award, did you not?

13:23
Clarissa Wei
3D line awards, actually. So, yeah, at the Thyline party at night, they give out, like, these trophies, Right. That have the D. Honest. I was walking around with 3Ds being like, look at my triple Ds and laughing to myself.

13:34
Caitlin Bricker
I would be laughing with you.

13:35
Clarissa Wei
Thank you. Thank you. So what was really awesome is, like, we got to work with an awesome team, and we got Best in Food, which was, wow. I was shocked. And especially looking at all the other people who had entered, all the other recipients. Like, there's some really amazing packaging out there. And I'm so honored that we got to be recognized with our branding studio.

13:58
Caitlin Bricker
Did you get a heads up before the awards ceremony that you're winning, or did you find out on the spot?

14:03
Clarissa Wei
Absolutely, we got a heads up.

14:04
Caitlin Bricker
Okay.

14:05
Clarissa Wei
I don't think I would have showed up at that show. The show that hosted the actual awards ceremony was a packaging show.

14:12
Caitlin Bricker
Wow.

14:12
Clarissa Wei
On a Wednesday afternoon in New York City.

14:14
Caitlin Bricker
Dieline, to me, as a consumer, feels like it would be a North Star of recognition for a CPG brand, even if you just get a mention on Instagram. Did you feel like, oh, my God, this is it. This is my moment?

14:29
Clarissa Wei
Definitely. And because we got Best of Food, which is a full category, we got to give a little speech, too. So I felt like I was winning an Oscar, which is not going to happen probably in this lifetime. So that was really cool. And I think what was really awesome, too, is when were thinking about our Branding. Before we actually settled on what is the HEYDOH branding, were looking at Thailand. We were looking at Thailand for inspiration, looking at past winners, looking at people in the directory being like, oh wow, this branding studio looks good. Or this packaging looks really good. And one of the big questions for us was part of that culturally accessible part, like we want to look quote unquote authentic, but also accessible to the everyday American. So finding that balance.

15:17
Clarissa Wei
So having Dieline as a resource and other design websites too was really critical for kind of understanding what we needed.

15:25
Caitlin Bricker
Can we shout out your agency that you ended up working with?

15:28
Clarissa Wei
Yes, they are amazing. They are called here4 and they're based on the west coast and Hawaii. And yeah, everyone go and talk to them. They're also some of the sweetest people out there.

15:40
Caitlin Bricker
Wow, I am super impressed with your branding. When we first met, you gave me the sticker with the bean that's like this, which I still have in a box of stickers that I have that I just am like, what am I going to do with these? I don't want to stick it on a random place and then have it just be gone forever. But I think it's really cool to hear that came full circle for you. First, the Robin Hood branding. Rest in peace. And now we have an award winning brand. Times three, right? Or times four?

16:08
Clarissa Wei
Three. Triple D's. Triple D's.

16:10
Caitlin Bricker
Triple Ds, right. Hello. How could I forget? We've touched on this very briefly already, but you are working in different countries. Clarissa, you're in Taiwan. Christine, you're in Brooklyn. What is that like? How are you connecting with each other on a daily basis and what tasks are you taking on individually to make this brand be whole? Clarissa, you want to start?

16:32
Clarissa Wei
Yeah.

16:32
Christine Liu
We joke that we're a 24 hour company, which is true. And what is lovely is that I am a morning person and Christine is a night owl. So our times actually overlap lot more than one would think. And Christine has come to Taiwan a couple of times and when she's actually here it's hard to schedule because she's a night owl and I'm a morning person. So in a way this works out. But what sucks is that I'm not physically in the States. I'm in charge of marketing and so much of marketing these days is like brand activations and community building. And Christine's been a trooper really, just doing operations and logistics, but also doing community building on the ground. But I just think we live in such a digital age with all of these Technology tools.

17:21
Christine Liu
It really is possible to run a company from across the world though being there in the States and having an on the ground presence and going to startup CPG buyer meetings, which have been huge for us, is very valuable as well.

17:36
Caitlin Bricker
Christine, can you speak to your experience with the startup CPG meetings?

17:40
Clarissa Wei
Yeah, no Startups TVG has absolutely been a lifeline for a small brand like us. Like we had a small friends and family round, but we're mostly bootstrapping. So we, through these meetings were able to get a happier grocer which is an awesome win. And also this year at Expo were able to get into good stuff distributor which works in the Bay Area and a potential regional grocer that I will keep a mum about for now and also a few other potential clients down the line. So startup CVG has been great. And what's awesome I think too is like, it's just so accessible. Tickets are cheap, people are friendly and people love sharing knowledge too. People also like asking for things.

18:24
Clarissa Wei
The number of times I've been asked by someone I just met for what my margins are is kind of a lot, but I think it's also part of it too. What I've also found in the CPG community is that people are so nice and people are so willing to share and it's been really amazing, especially coming from an industry like tech, which is a bit more competitive and bit more cut through, is that a lot of this is at the end of the day luck.

18:50
Christine Liu
Right?

18:50
Clarissa Wei
And I think because of that, people are more willing to give you more of their maybe secret sauce or talk more about their experience to kind of help each other avoid pitfalls like the number of calls that Clarissa and I have had with other founders where they've just given us a buyer email or they told us like, oh, avoid this person or this like entity because this and this from my experience, it's been amazing. And like we also try to do the same for others.

19:18
Caitlin Bricker
That's what community is, right? Being able to give and take. And if you don't have the give and take, you don't have community.

19:24
Clarissa Wei
It's a little village.

19:25
Caitlin Bricker
It is to be cliche. It is. I think the piece about being honest about experiences is key because you don't want to steer people in the wrong direction. I'm sure both of you know, again, I'm not a CPG founder, but I see all the time on social media that people go with the wrong agency, they go with the wrong branding agency, the wrong Amazon agency, whatever it is. And they end up putting all of this money in to make a massive mistake for their brand that either sets them back tremendously or just kills the brand altogether. So that honesty aspect is so important. And I have to say, too, Clarissa, you were mentioning about the marketing. I had such a good laugh watching the Myrtle Wombat video when you were saying, hey, like, go check out the product on the shelf.

20:13
Caitlin Bricker
And you're like, christine goes in and didn't film the product.

20:17
Clarissa Wei
I forgot.

20:20
Christine Liu
I'm basically training her to be an influencer from abroad and she's doing great. Like, Christine is way better in front of the camera than I am. I'm just good at, like, finding the talking points. But Christine is a natural. It's actually a really weird combination we have. She's the extrovert, I'm the introvert. But I'm in charge of marketing and she's in charge of the numbers. But somehow we manage.

20:43
Clarissa Wei
We're flipping the narrative.

20:45
Caitlin Bricker
You're doing amazing, sweetie.

20:47
Clarissa Wei
Everywhere.

20:49
Caitlin Bricker
So good.

20:50
Clarissa Wei
Yeah. I bought my first, like, tripod selfie stick and I was, like, walking around with it. I'm like, this is my slow descent into content creation. And I don't know if I love it, but like Clarissa mentioned earlier, like, it's one of those things that in this day and age for marketing, you kind of have to do. Right? It's just very different than it was 10 years ago. And people love seeing a big head talking reel. For better or for worse.

21:14
Caitlin Bricker
It's true. It's so true.

21:16
Christine Liu
And authenticity too. Like, all those videos with Christine, that is her real self, she really did forget to film the sauce. So I just tried to make a moment out of it. I'm the one who edits it so that it's, like, funny, but, like, I'm combing through so much, like, 10 minutes of footage and I'm like, where's the soy sauce?

21:36
Clarissa Wei
I got distracted by the slushy machine.

21:40
Caitlin Bricker
I mean, it's valid. Yeah.

21:41
Christine Liu
You sent me, like, a two minute of a slushy machine. I'm like, what is this?

21:46
Caitlin Bricker
Speed it up 2x. I have to ask too, because everything seems so smooth when you look at everything on Instagram for most brands. And when you launched, it felt like you just took off running. Products were selling out, you were getting into retailers. Is there anything that you ran into while building the brand that you'd consider a snag, that you'd say, hey, I wish we did this a little differently on my side.

22:11
Christine Liu
I mean, Christine alluded to this already, but really was the design. I guess that was before the branch launching the brand.

22:18
Clarissa Wei
Yeah. So the design thing, we could do like a more kind of tight bit about the design if you want. Caitlin. But the other thing is the three PL situation. So we launched with this three PL that is famous for taking on smaller brands. And like, everything seemed great at first, but oh my God, behind the scenes, bottles were breaking everywhere. Left and right. Bottles from like this 3pl. I don't want to name where it is, but basically like going just three miles, bottles were breaking. We're like, oh, no, no, this is not going to work. So I had to physically go to the 3 PL pretty much weekly.

22:54
Caitlin Bricker
Wow.

22:55
Clarissa Wei
And try to troubleshoot what was happening. So when we first launched, we had this beautiful idea that we wanted to be as eco friendly as possible. And I think we're doing the best we can. There is that liquid in glass bottles is probably the heaviest thing to ship possible. Right. For a consumer if you're not buying, like specialized machinery. So what we want to do at first is to use like all paper materials. Instead of bubble wrap, we want to use this honeycomb paper, which is basically like the paper form of bubble wrap. We're like, it's so cute. People will be so, like delighted. It turns out you can't really protect glass with a few sheets of crinkled paper, which we found out one day in from the first bottles being shipped out from the 3 PL.

23:41
Clarissa Wei
So I had to go in, be like, oh my God, what is happening? And within the first three or four weeks, we had to do like an emergency turnaround where we use like wine chippers that we got from, I think Uline, because they did like, next day delivery. We had to use wine chippers just to get things to stop breaking because otherwise, like all of our product was just like shattering everywhere. So eventually though, we ended up being introduced to this wine shipping brand that sells these inserts that they're actually based in Queens. So local to basically saved our entire, like 3 PL shipping situation. So now our breakage went from like, I don't know, it was like 25%. We hardly hear a peep about it now, actually, which is amazing.

24:27
Caitlin Bricker
Wow. I imagine it's a very expensive mistake to make choosing what you think is going to be the right three pl, and turns out that it's not. Do you have a name of the company that you're using now? For the packing?

24:40
Clarissa Wei
Yeah, for the packaging. The guy's great. It's called Spirited Shippers. So they make this proprietary Bottle shipper. That's awesome. So shout out to Bruce there too, because.

24:49
Caitlin Bricker
Hi, Bruce.

24:50
Clarissa Wei
Yeah, it really saved our bread. Another snag. We can keep this or leave. This is also about shipping costs, because not only is shipping liquid and glass very risky, it's also really expensive, it turns out. So another thing that happened with the first repeal were with when we launched was our shipping costs were. It was just, like, out of this world, insane. We were like, what is this? Like, I was spending, like, hours combing through our charges every month. When we got the bill, I was like, okay, we can't do this. So basically, I had to go in and do essentially, like, an audit of, like, what are ways to get our shipping costs down.

25:26
Clarissa Wei
And what's been really fun is the new 3 PL we've been working with has been really open to working with us to keep shipping costs down at the expense of arguably their own profit. So what we do now, essentially, is we bring our own shipping rates and have the newest 3PL shop against our shipping rates. And whoever wins, we are at least guaranteed that we're getting the lowest shipping cost possible. And that's actually really helped us remain in the green when it comes to D2C, because otherwise, again, shipping glass bottles is extremely expensive. They're extremely heavy, but kind of forcing, like a rate picker. Sorry, this is getting, like, kind of boring, but I love the shit.

26:06
Caitlin Bricker
Please, you're speaking the language for CPG founders.

26:08
Clarissa Wei
Yeah, I mean, I would have loved to hear this. Yeah. So, like, forcing our 3 PL to pick against our rates has honestly been a godsend because we're able to get shipping labels down, like, three, four dollars on the package.

26:19
Caitlin Bricker
Wow, that adds up. They sound like an excellent partner.

26:22
Clarissa Wei
Yeah, I'm happy to shout them out.

26:24
Caitlin Bricker
So do it.

26:25
Clarissa Wei
Yeah. So we are working with handled commerce. They have a warehouse in New Jersey and one in Southern California, and they've been an amazing partner. And if you mention us, I think we both get a little perk.

26:36
Caitlin Bricker
There you go.

26:36
Christine Liu
And we found them through startup CPG as well. I did a, like, call for help in the Slack, and then their, like, head of sales DM'd me, and. Yeah, that's how we found them as well, so. Yay, startup cpg.

26:50
Caitlin Bricker
Oh, thank you. We love to hear that. I mean, the community is massive, and typically, if you're asking a question, you're gonna get answer. Maybe you have to comb through and find the right ones that work for you, but I'm so happy to hear that it's working out for you. They sound like such good partners that really get it and want to help you and will take a hit even if it means it's for them. Very cool. Any last words of advice that you want to give to any brands? Building a CPG brand right now, I.

27:19
Christine Liu
Guess on my end, everything from finding co founders to design partners to people we work with, it's. You can look at a person's like, resume or what they've done, but how Christine and I decide on whether or not we partner with someone is really based on vibes as well, how we feel about them as a person. That's how we chose our design agency. That's how we've come to really like our current 3PL. Honestly, like, the reason why Christine and I work so well together was because, a, we're childhood friends, but like, B, we traveled through, like rural China together and spent a lot of time on the road. Christine used to like, drag me to landfills because she was doing a Fulbright on like Trash and we watched like sheep cross the river and she was like, chatting up uncles.

28:06
Christine Liu
So much of this you can comb through resumes and really look at a person's background, but, like, really just see if you get along with a person. Like, the chemistry is so important in this industry.

28:17
Caitlin Bricker
That's huge. And honestly, I don't feel like I hear very many people talking about that because it can be make or break, just like a real relationship in life. The business relationship is no different.

28:27
Christine Liu
Yeah, a hundred percent.

28:28
Caitlin Bricker
Well, it has been a pleasure talking to both of you. I'm so excited where HEYDOH's going, where you've been. I feel like this year has been unbelievable for you. It's been so fun to watch on Instagram. Seeing everything go down, hearing all of your successes has been so good. So for any retailers or consumers or investors, anybody who's listening right now, where can they find you online, what's your website and what's your social handles?

28:53
Clarissa Wei
So you can find us@heydoh that's h e y d o h.co.com for our website and on Instagram at.

29:05
Caitlin Bricker
Beautiful. Well, thank you both so much. I hope our paths cross again soon. Clarissa, I hope to meet you in person one day. And Christine, I'll catch you in a freezer somewhere in Brooklyn or elsewhere.

29:16
Clarissa Wei
Can't wait.

29:17
Caitlin Bricker
Thank you guys. See you later. Thank you. CPG BFFs. We've now arrived together at the end of another episode of the Startup CPG podcast. As you may know, we're not just the top globally ranked CPG podcast. We're a community of tens of thousands of CPG founders and experts and you should join us if you haven't already. Head to startupcpg.com to sign up. You'll get an invite to our Slack community, hear about events near you, and get access to opportunities that connect you with buyers, investors and other brands. It's free, so what are you waiting for? I'll see you in Slack and in real life. Thanks for listening.